Nuclear energy in the United States is undergoing a revival.
FOX Business correspondent Jeff Flock, reporting Wednesday from the site of a planned Natura Resources small modular nuclear reactor in Texas, said the U.S. has a “voracious appetite for energy” that nuclear reactors can help meet.
Natura Resources, founded by Doug Robinson, is developing molten salt reactors, a type of advanced small nuclear reactor. Its molten salt research reactor at Abilene Christian University in west-central Texas is scheduled to go live in just a couple of years.
Small modular reactors are “small, affordable, safe, dispatchable, clean energy that we can put anywhere we need it,” Robinson told Flock.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) brought attention to America’s growing need for more power, according to the Natura Resources founder and president.
“AI is, I call it the shark fin above the water,” he said. “The need for power, demand for power increase, was always there.”
A report released in December by GridStrategies forecast a 15.8% jump in electricity demand for the U.S. by 2029. Data centers, manufacturing and electrification will be major drivers of that increase, the report said.
AI technology relies on data centers.
Earlier this month, a separate International Energy Administration report found that data center electricity consumption in the U.S. will see a 130% jump from 2024 to 2030.
Robinson told Flock there are “two projects that have construction permits from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission” for advanced nuclear reactors.
“We are one of those,” he said.
“We’re standing in the only advanced reactor facility in the nation,” Robinson added during the interview. “So we are moving toward construction of this reactor with our commercial reactors running parallel.”
Numerous states have taken action in recent years to explore the potential of advanced nuclear reactors or to take steps to pave the way for them in the future amid growing interest in the technology.
STATES LOOK TO SMALLER ADVANCED NUCLEAR REACTORS FOR POWER NEEDS
Twenty-five states took “pro-nuclear” action in some form last year, according to a January report from the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Some traditional nuclear reactors are slated to reopen in the coming years.
For example, Constellation announced in September that it had inked a 20-year electricity purchase agreement with Microsoft that will “pave the way” for Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 reactor to start back up in Pennsylvania.
MICHIGAN NUCLEAR PLANT SET TO RESTART, FIRST FOR U.S.
More recently, in April, Holtec International received a third loan disbursement worth $46.7 million allocated for its future reopening of Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Plant from the Department of Energy. Its second loan disbursement of nearly $56.8 million had previously been released in mid-March.
Nuclear energy accounted for roughly 18% of America’s power in 2024, according to the DOE.
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